Lodges of Magic

HP Blavatsky @ Theosophy Trust

Lodges of Magic

When fiction rises pleasing to the eye,
Men will believe, because they love the lie;
But Truth herself, if clouded with a frown,
Must have some solemn proofs to pass her down.

 CHURCHILL.

One of the most esteemed of our friends in
occult research, propounds the question of the formation of "working
Lodges" of the Theosophical Society, for the development
of adeptship. If the practical impossibility of forcing this process
has been shown once, in the course of the theosophical movement,
it has scores of times. It is hard to check one's natural impatience
to tear aside the veil of the Temple. To gain the divine knowledge,
like the prize in a classical tripos, by a system of coaching
and cramming, is the ideal of the average beginner in occult
study. The refusal of the originators of the Theosophical Society
to encourage such false hopes, has led to the formation of bogus
Brotherhoods of Luxor (and Armley Jail?) as speculations
on human credulity. How enticing the bait for gudgeons in the
following specimen prospectus, which a few years ago caught some
of our most earnest friends and Theosophists.

"Students of the Occult Science, searchers after truth, and
Theosophists who may have been disappointed in their expectations
of Sublime Wisdom being freely dispensed by HINDU MAHATMAS, are cordially invited to send in
their names to ...., when, if found suitable, they can be admitted,
after a short probationary term, as Members of an Occult Brotherhood,
who do not boast of their knowledge or attainments, but teach
freely" (at £1 to £5 per letter?), "and without reserve" (the nastiest portions of P. B. Randolph's
"Eulis"). "all they find worthy to receive"
(read: teachings on a commercial basis; the cash going to the
teachers, and the extracts from Randolph and other "love-philter"
sellers to the pupils!) 1

If rumour be true, some of the English rural districts, especially
Yorkshire, are overrun with fraudulent astrologers and fortune-tellers,
who pretend to be Theosophists, the better to swindle a higher
class of credulous patrons than their legitimate prey, the servant-maid
and callow youth. If the "lodges of magic," suggested
in the following letter to the Editors of this Magazine, were
founded, without having taken the greatest precautions to admit
only the best candidates to membership, we should see these vile
exploitations of sacred names and things increase an hundredfold.
And in this connection, and before giving place to our friend's
letter, the senior Editor of LUCIFER begs
to inform her friends that she has never had the remotest connection
with the so-called "H (ermetic) B (rotherhood) of L (uxor),"
and that all representations to the contrary are false and dishonest. There is a secret body  whose diploma, or Certificate of Membership,
is held by Colonel Olcott alone among modern men of white blood  to
which that name was given by the author of "Isis Unveiled"
for convenience of designation,2 but which is known
among Initiates by quite another one, just as the personage known
to the public under the pseudonym of "Koot Hoomi," is
called by a totally different name among his acquaintance. What
the real name of that society is, it would puzzle the "Eulian"
phallicists of the "H. B. of L." to tell. The real names
of Master Adepts and Occult Schools are never, under any circumstances, revealed to the profane; and the names of the personages who
have been talked about in connection with modem Theosophy, are
in the possession only of the two chief founders of the Theosophical
Society. And now, having said so much by way of preface, let us
pass on to our correspondent's letter. He writes:

A friend
of mine, a natural mystic, had intended to form, with
others, a Branch T.S. in his town. Surprised at his delay, I wrote
to ask the reason. His reply was that he had heard that the T.S.
only met and talked, and did nothing practical. I always did think
the T.S. ought to have Lodges in which something practical should
be done. Cagliostro Understood well this craving of humans for
something before their eyes, when he instituted the Egyptian Rite,
and put it in practice in various Freemason lodges. There are
many readers of LUCIFER in __________ shire.
Perhaps in it there might be a suggestion for students to form
such lodges for themselves, and to try, by their united wills,
to develop certain powers in one of the number, and then through
the whole of them in succession. I feel sure numbers would enter
such lodges, and create a great interest for Theosophy.

 "A."

In the above note of our venerable and learned friend is the echo
of the voices of ninety-nine hundredths of the members of the
Theosophical Society: one-hundredth only have the correct idea
of the function and scope of our Branches. The glaring mistake
generally made is in the conception of adeptship and the path
thereunto. Of all thinkable undertakings that of trying for adeptship
is the most difficult. Instead of being obtainable within a few
years or one lifetime, it exacts the unremittent struggles of
a series of lives, save in cases so rare as to be hardly worth
regarding as exceptions to the general rule. The records certainly
show that a number of the most revered Indian adepts became so
despite their births in the lowest, and seemingly most unlikely,
castes. Yet it is well understood that they had been progressing
in the upward direction throughout many previous incarnations,
and, when they took birth for the last time, there was left but
the merest trifle of spiritual evolution to be accomplished, before
they became great living adepts. Of course, no one can say that
one or all of the possible members of our friend "A."
's ideal Cagliostrian lodge might not also be ready for adeptship,
but the chance is not good enough to speculate upon: Western civilization
seems to develop fighters rather than philosophers, military butchers
rather than Buddhas. The plan "A." proposes would be
far more likely to end in mediumship than adeptship. Two to one
there would not be a member of the lodge who was chaste from boyhood
and altogether untainted by the use of intoxicants. This is to
say nothing of the candidates' freedom from the polluting effects
of the evil influences of the average social environment. Among
the indispensable pre-requisites for psychic development, noted
in the mystical Manuals of all Eastern religious systems, are
a pure place, pure diet, pure companionship, and a pure mind.
Could "A." guarantee these? It is certainly desirable
that there should be some school of instruction for members of
our Society; and had the purely exoteric work and duties of the
Founders been less absorbing, probably one such would have been
established long ago. Yet not for practical instruction, on the
plan of Cagliostro, which, by-the-bye, brought direful suffering
upon his head, and has left no marked traces behind to encourage
a repetition in our days. "When the pupil is ready, the teacher
will be found waiting," says an Eastern maxim. The Masters
do not have to hunt up recruits in special __________ shire lodges,
nor drill them through mystical non-commissioned officers: time
and space are no barriers between them and the aspirant; where
thought can pass they can come. Why did an old and learned Kabalist
like "A." forget this fact? And let him also remember
that the potential adept may exist in the White chapels and Five
Points of Europe and America, as well as in the cleaner and more
"cultured" quarters; that some poor ragged wretch, begging
a crust, may be "whiter-souled" and more attractive
to the adept than the average bishop in his robe, or a cultured
citizen in his costly dress. For the extension of the theosophical
movement, a useful channel for the irrigation of the dry fields
of contemporary thought with the water of life, Branches are needed
everywhere; not mere groups of passive sympathisers, such as the
slumbering army of churchgoers, whose eyes are shut while the
"devil" sweeps the field; no, not such. Active, wide-awake,
earnest, unselfish Branches are Deeded, whose members shall not
be constantly unmasking their selfishness by asking "What
will it profit us to join the Theosophical Society, and how much
will it harm us?" but be putting to themselves the question
"Can we not do substantial good to mankind by working in
this good cause with all our hearts, our minds, and our strength?"
If "A." would only bring his __________ shire friends,
who pretend to occult leanings, to view the question from this
side, he would be doing them a real kindness. The Society can
get on without them, but they cannot afford to let it do so.

Is it profitable, moreover, to discuss the question of a Lodge
receiving even theoretical instruction, until we can be sure that
all the members will accept the teachings as coming from the alleged
source? Occult truth cannot be absorbed by a mind that is filled
with preconception, prejudice, or suspicion. It is something to
be perceived by the intuition rather than by the reason; being
by nature spiritual, not material. Some are so constituted as
to be incapable of acquiring knowledge by the exercise of the
spiritual faculty; e.g. the great majority of physicists. Such
are slow, if not wholly incapable of grasping the ultimate truths
behind the phenomena of existence. There are many such in the
Society; and the body of the discontented are recruited from their
ranks. Such persons readily persuade themselves that later teachings,
received from exactly the same source as earlier ones, are either
false or have been tampered with by chelas, or even third parties.
Suspicion and inharmony are the natural result, the psychic atmosphere,
so to say, is thrown into confusion, and the reaction, even upon
the stauncher students, is very harmful. Sometimes vanity blinds
what was at first strong intuition, the mind is effectually closed
against the admission of new truth, and the aspiring student is
thrown back to the point where he began. 17faving jumped at some
particular conclusion of his own without full study of the subject,
and before the teaching had been fully expounded, his tendency,
when proved wrong, is to listen only to the voice of his self-adulation,
and cling to his views, whether right or wrong. 'Ihe Lord Buddha
particularly warned his hearers against forming beliefs upon tradition
or authority, and before having thoroughly inquired into the subject.

An instance. We have been asked by a correspondent why he should
not "be free to suspect some of the so-called 'precipitated'
letters as being forgeries," giving as his reason for it
that while some of them bear the stamp of (to him) undeniable
genuineness, others seem from their contents and style, to be
imitations. This is equivalent to saying that he has such an unerring
spiritual insight as to be able to detect the false from the true,
though he has never met a Master, nor been given any key by which
to test his alleged communications. The inevitable consequence
of applying his untrained judgment in such cases, would be to
make him as likely as not to declare false what was genuine, and
genuine what was false. Thus what criterion has any one
to decide between one "precipitated" letter, or another
such letter? Who except their authors, or those whom they employ
as their amanuenses (the chelas and disciples), can tell?
For it is hardly one out of a hundred "occult" letters
that is ever written by the hand of the Master, in whose name
and on whose behalf they are sent, as the Masters have neither
need nor leisure to write them; and that when a Master says, "I
wrote that letter," it means only that every word in it was
dictated by him and impressed under his direct supervision. Generally
they make their chela, whether near or far away, write (or precipitate)
them, by impressing upon his mind the ideas they wish expressed,
and if necessary aiding him in the picture-printing process of
precipitation. It depends entirely upon the chela's state
of development, how accurately the ideas may be transmitted and
the writing-model imitated. Thus the non-adept recipient
is left in the dilemma of uncertainty, whether, if one letter
is false, all may not be; for, as far as intrinsic evidence goes,
all come from the same source, and an are brought by the same
mysterious means. But there is another, and a far worse condition
implied. For all that the recipient of "occult" letters
can possibly know, and on the simple grounds of probability and
common honesty, the unseen correspondent who would tolerate one
single fraudulent line in his name, would wink at an unlimited
repetition of the deception. And this leads directly to the following.
All the so-called occult letters being supported by identical
proofs, they have all to stand or fall together. If one
is to be doubted, then all have, and the series of letters in
the "Occult World," "Esoteric Buddhism," etc.,
etc., may be, and there is no reason why they should not be in
such a case-frauds, "clever impostures," and
"forgeries," such as the ingenuous though stupid agent
of the "S.P.R." has made them out to be, in order to
raise in the public estimation the "scientific" acumen
and standard of his "Principals."

Hence, not a step in advance would be made by a group of students
given over to such an unimpressible state of mind, and without
any guide from the occult side to open their eyes to the
esoteric pitfalls. And where are such guides, so far, in our Society?
"They be blind leaders of the blind," both falling into
the ditch of vanity and self-sufficiency. The whole difficulty
springs from the common tendency to draw conclusions from insufficient
premises, and play the oracle before ridding oneself of that most
stupefying of all psychic anæsthetics  IGNORANCE.

Lucifer, Octobber, 1888
H. P. Blavatsky
l Documents on view at LUCIFER Office,
viz., Secret MSS. written in the handwriting of  (name suppressed
for past considerations), "Provincial Grand Master of the
Northern Section." One of these documents bears the heading,
"A brief Key to the Eulian Mysteries," i.e. Tantric
black magic on a phallic basis. NO; the members of this Occult
Brotherhood "do not boast of their knowledge." Very
sensible on their part: least said soonest mended.back to
text

2 in "Isis Unveiled," vol. ii, p. 308. It
may be added that the "Brotherhood of Luxor" mentioned
by Kenneth Mackenzie (vide his Royal Masonic Cyclopaedia) as
having its seat in America, had, after all, nothing to do with
the Brotherhood mentioned by, and known to us, as was ascertained
after the publication of "Isis" from a letter written
by this late Masonic author to a friend in New York. The Brotherhood
Mackeri6e knew of was simply a Masonic Society on a rather more
secret basis, and, as he stated in the letter, he had heard
of, but knew nothing of our Brotherhood, which having had
a branch at Luxor (Egypt), was thus purposely referred to by us
under this name alone. This led some schemers to infer that there
was a regular Lodge of Adepts of that name, and to assure some
credulous friends and Theosophists that the "H. B. of L."
was either identical or a branch Of the same, supposed to be near
Lahore! !-which was the most flagrant untruth.back to text